


The Valkyrie

by ValiantOrange



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Engineering, Gen, I might get technical with things, Mercy talks to herself, Survival
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2018-12-19 15:38:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11900802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValiantOrange/pseuds/ValiantOrange
Summary: Mercy gets stranded while flying out on an aid mission, has to use her intelligence and knowledge of technology to survive.It's basically The Martian but with Mercy. I'm shameless.





	1. Chapter 1

**Log Entry: 2071-07-16: 19:39 UTC + 1:00**

Okay, this is Angela Ziegler recording. As far as I can tell, an indeterminate amount of time ago a shuttle transporting emergency aid supplies to the village of Ajban flew into a storm somewhere over the Sahara. Based on the current date and time the computer is reporting, it is 7:39 in Switzerland, which would put it at around 6:39 at my location.

To put things bluntly, there isn’t a shuttle anymore. In my immediate vicinity I’d say about a third of it is scattered about. There’s no sign of the other passengers either, so for the time being it’s likely best to assume that they’re incapacitated, or otherwise unable to attempt contact.

I was knocked unconscious during the crash; though the cause is unknown. Based on pain and bruising I suspect that blunt force trauma to my lower jaw caused it. I believe I fell asleep soon after I came back to, since when I woke up there were signs that I had moved. Damage to my clothing implies that there were more severe injuries, but I had been holding onto my Caduceus staff when the shuttle went down, and it was beneath me when I woke up. Best guess there is that I somehow activated the staff while asleep, and the nanomachines set to healing the injuries on my body. I’m thankful that my tech is as reliable as it is.

I still have no idea how I survived the fall. I also don’t think that figuring it out will help me much, so that will have to be left as a mystery for now.

Oh, I should probably talk about the reason I’m out here in the first place. A few months ago reports were given to me of various villages throughout the world that lacked proper access to modern medicine and communication. A plan was formed to send out teams of experts to help set up the villages with supplies that would help improve their standards of living. This was, well, not sanctioned by any official government or ruling body. I suppose Overwatch may have approved my proposal, but they’re not around anymore.

What this means is that we were the help. There’s nobody out there waiting for us to return; other than loved ones and friends. From what I’ve seen, none of the communications systems are functional- meaning I can’t broadcast a distress signal. My GPS receiver is broken, so I have no idea where I am. A cursory check of the Caduceus staff shows that the stem cell incubator is damaged, which means I have a limited amount of healing I can dispense.

There’s some good news at least. In addition to hardware and medical supplies, we were transporting clean water and food for the village, so I won’t starve to death. In fact, it will take a while for me to starve at all, assuming I can find the food. And while most the communications systems are broken, I have a functioning computer. We also brought redundant comm systems for the village, so they wouldn’t be completely stranded if they had a similar failure; so it’s possible I can find the parts to try to fix everything.

But at the end of the day I’m stranded alone in the middle of one of the hottest deserts in the world during mid July. And while I know that these supplies exist, I have no idea where most of them are.

This looks bad, but so do a lot of things until you take a step back. Let’s go take that step.

**Log Entry: 2071-07-16: 22:15 UTC + 1:00**

The sun set about an hour after the last log. Fortunately I was able to salvage a flashlight before visibility went too low which let me keep exploring. I’ve kept my searching to a vague circle that I’m approximating to be a kilometer in diameter, with the center being where I woke up. We’ll call it point alpha from now on.

Hidden just behind the sand dune I’d landed on was one of the crates we were taking to Ajban. Inside was a 15 Gallon tank of water, enough to last about two weeks in current conditions. The food was another story. We were bringing Meal Replacement Bars (MRBs for short) to Ajban, since it’s a cheap and energy dense source of food. Each bar has 500 calories in it, with 30% protein, 30% fat and 40% carbohydrates. There were fifty bars in the crate, so having three a day will last me two weeks, with some extra to spare. It’s a mild calorie deficit, but nothing I can’t live with. We’ll call it a diet. The extra bars will be used on days where I’ve had to do a bit of extra work carrying things around.

Finally, in the crate, was a kilogram block of salt. I can use this to help prevent dehydration. Though, my first priority where rations are concerned is to find more water.

One of the more exciting finds was a tool kit that was buried in the sand along with three solar panels. The damage to the panels is mild, so hopefully I can try to get them up and running when the sun comes back up. I don’t think I’ll have to worry too much about finding an optimal angle for light absorption.

I looked at my GPS unit a bit more, and while the receiver is completely useless; the antenna looks mostly unharmed. It makes sense, those things are designed to work in storms. Something as simple as a fall shouldn’t break them. I have a completely broken radio unit; and I honestly have no idea where to even begin repairing that.

Finally, I found a large amount of tarp fabric, and some metal poles. Looks like I’ll be setting up a tent for some shade during the day. I should also set a hammock up so I don’t need to sleep on the sand.

Oh, in addition to my findings, there were chunks of the shuttle laying around. I can’t really think of any use for the scrap metal at the moment, but it’s there if I ever need it.

I’ve been thinking about what I have to do for now, and it’s a bit daunting. I feel like taking a step back to look at my situation made me realize that the mess was bigger than I initially suspected. There’s only one thing to do from here. Break the problem up. I think keeping these logs will help me work through things, since often times talking about something outloud reveals things you didn’t initially notice. Also, if I don’t survive, it provides my last logs.

So, let’s go through what I need to do. First things first is to set up my shelter. That should be easy enough, I have everything for it here. I’ve decided that I will likely have a hard time being productive during the day, so I’ll sleep then and work at night. There’s almost zero light pollution here, so visibility won’t be too much of an issue. After that I’ll set the solar panels up so I can keep my computer operational. This will let me run whatever sensors I find, so I can start to gather information about my situation.

Once I’ve made sure that I won’t die of heat stroke anytime soon the next step will be to start searching. I had four companions on that flight, and I need to verify their status. Setting up a flag from the tarp will likely help them find me, so I’ll do that while I’m putting up the tent. Also, I need to find either a way to contact help or to get myself to help.

**Log Entry: 2071-07-16: 23:35 UTC + 1:00**

Getting the tent set up ending up being a little bit harder than I initially thought it would. I found a knife in the tool kit and set to slicing the tarp into sheets. Turns out it’s not particularly easy to cut in a perfectly straight line.

Ah well, what’s done is done. My shelter isn't pretty, but I have shade, a hammock and a flag. What more could I ask for? Well, I suppose I could ask for the storm to clear. There’s been a haboob brewing, but something about it feels wrong. I have very little experience with climatology- so I’m not quite sure how to properly express this. I’ll have to make sure to keep myself covered to protect from the sand, though.

I’m eating right now. I guess it’d be breakfast, though calling it breakfast at 10:30 feels a bit weird. Before I ate I did a quick physical check up on myself as best I could. I’m in surprisingly good health, all things considered.

I’ve been doing a bit of thinking about Ajban. Ajban has a population of about 200 people. They’re relatively isolated from the rest of the world, though this isn’t due to any deliberate isolationist policies. They were pleasantly surprised when we sent a representative who talked to them about helping.

I suppose my question here is what place does a community like Ajban have in the world? We’ve become an increasingly connected species. My work has taken me all around the world, to places that even a hundred years ago would’ve been inconceivable for me to have gone to. More and more humanity has become about communication with the outside. We have vast information systems that enable near instant transmission of data between any two people on Earth. This is, of course, assuming they’re connected.

Does a village of two hundred people truly fit in as members of humanity? And Ajban isn’t alone. All around the globe there are these isolated pockets. Communities of people who simply exist. As someone whose life has been driven by the desire to discover and innovate; the idea of living like that is hard to wrap my mind around.

You could argue that there’s a nobility, a beauty to it. This is life in its purest form. A group of people uniting together to survive and to coexist in harmony. They aren’t bogged down by the consumerism and the obsessive need for a constant stream of information that many people in modern society seem to crave. But I can just as easily consider the argument that they aren’t truly being a part of our species. We’ve always taken small steps forward, standing on the shoulders of the giants that came before us. Perhaps humanity’s most noble pursuit is to become one of the giants, helping future generations see further and understand more.

It’s difficult for me to stay neutral here. I’ve lived my whole life in the heart of society. I’ve seen some of the worst, and I’ve seen some of the best. And I choose to believe that the worst is nowhere near as bad as the best is good. The more we, as a species, try to communicate, the more we can understand. And I have to believe that understanding and knowledge leads to growth.

When a village like Ajban gets sick, nobody knows but them. If they were to all die, they would pass from this world, unknown and unmourned. They stand alone against whatever the world may throw their way. It is a comfort to me that I’ve been given a chance to reach out and invite them to a more connected society.

I don’t think it’s my place to decide if isolated communities truly fit in our current world. However, it is my place to try to help them. They are, before anything else, humans. And humanity is something beautiful.

I have an obligation to do everything in my power to help them. Even if that means getting myself to safety so we can try to bring them supplies again.

I’m going to get back to work.


	2. Chapter 2

**Log Entry: 2071-07-17: 17:03 UTC + 1:00**

I may have gotten myself a bit too fired up last night. It’s good that I’m keeping my spirits high, but there’s only so much one can do at midnight in the middle of the desert. Having that much energy isn’t really useful when I’m trying to restrict myself to 1500 calories a day. With that in mind, I’m still going to hold onto that determination I had. Just maybe not as tightly.

So last night I ended up disassembling my GPS receiver, seeing if I could figure out what exactly was wrong with it. Unfortunately it looks like it’s completely scrapped; which means that I’m going to have to work without GPS. Figuring out my position is a priority, but it’s one that I’m going to have to move back until I find a feasible way of achieving it.

After the failure with the receiver I expanded my perimeter slightly, by what I’m approximating to be half a kilometer. I wasn’t able to perform a full search, that’ll continue once the sun goes down, but I found more supplies! This time I found a crate of hygiene supplies, mainly antibacterial wipes, antibiotics and some pads - though let’s hope I’m not out here that long. I saw what I thought to be a wing of the shuttle around four in the morning, before I went to bed, so I’m going to investigate that more after breakfast.

So schedule for today is to start by investigating the potential wing I saw. I’d also like to find the black box of the shuttle. Though, a thought occurred to me. Our black box was orange; which I believe to be the standard practice. So, why are they called black boxes? Well, regardless, once I investigate that I’ll get to setting up the solar panels so I can have some power to work with. The ideal situation would be that I find some batteries along with the cooling system of the shuttle, and then set the panels up. Once that happens I’ll be completely set, and I can start trying to answer the question of how do I get out of here?

Oh, I’d really like to find some temperature sensors. I woke up a few times last night completely drenched in sweat; though truth be told I think I’m always drenched in sweat these days. I did have a change of clothes packed on the shuttle - while not critical for my survival, it’d be nice to find them.

Okay, I’ve eaten my bar so I’m going to start working on the solar panels before the sun goes down. See you in a few.

**Log Entry: 2071-07-18: 00:14 UTC + 1:00**

I… I suppose I anticipated this. I, well, I... ahh. Clearly I wasn’t ready to record this.

**Log Entry: 2071-07-18: 06:27 UTC + 1:00**

I need to record something before I go to bed.

The four other crew onboard the shuttle: Xun Chow, Madeline Belrose, Zoe Russel and Sukin Nikitovich did not survive the crash.

I cremated their bodies and scattered their ashes throughout the Sahara. They were people that dedicated their lives to helping those in need.

I’m going to go to sleep.

**Log Entry: 2071-07-18: 16:30 UTC + 1:00**

I’m not going to die here. Now that I say that out loud I’m starting to believe it a bit more.

I found my friends’ bodies by the wreckage of the shuttle’s main body. They died doing what they loved; I owe it to their memory to carry on their work, no matter what the cost is. I can do this. Most of the food and water was being stored in the main body of the shuttle so I can survive out here for a fairly long time if I’m conservative with the rations. I need to go back and investigate what else I can find in the wreckage, there are likely electrical components I can salvage. I also need to repair my solar panels, and then start looking into how to get out of here. There’ll be time for grief after I’ve ensured my survival.

Okay. One step at a time, Angela. Let’s get working.

**Log Entry: 2071-07-19: 03:05 UTC + 1:00**

Today was, well, productive. I’ve effectively doubled my water supply, and I can safely bump my caloric intake back to 2000 a day. I also managed to retrieve the orange box - I’m calling it that now - from the wreckage, meaning I’ll be able to analyze what happened to the shuttle later. The storm’s behavior has been extremely unusual from what I can see of it in the distance. It’s not coming any closer to me, thankfully, but it doesn’t seem to be going away either. I’m hoping the reports about the crash will shed some light onto what’s happening.

In addition to those, I’ve got some batteries to store the power I’ll start gathering tomorrow - well today if one is being technical - if my repairs of the solar panels work, I’ll fine tune those when I wake up before the sun goes down later today. More excitingly, I found a sensor kit, so I’ll be measuring just how hot the sand gets. Truth be told, I’m not sure what I’m hoping to gain from this, but it might be nice to know.

So, there are two more things and I’m not sure which I’m more excited about. Let’s just go with the smaller one first. So the cooling unit for the shuttle was completely destroyed, but in Belrose’s locker I found a small desk fan. I’m going to turn it on and connect it to the small power system I’ve set up. If everything works I’ll be cooled down while I sleep, and if not I’ll know as soon as I wake up: so it’s really a win win.

But, that’s not all. One of the anti-grav engines on the shuttle was still intact. I remember an old intern of mine going on a rant about how much he hated the design of the shuttles, something about how he felt that they abused the anti-grav tech by being flying blocks of metal. Regardless, I can use this. My current idea is to find a large sheet of metal and use the engine to lift it up. I’ll need to figure out another form of propulsion, but the nice thing about the anti-grav system is that I’ll barely need any. Even a small amount of thrust will eventually get the metal sheet going pretty fast, since there’s almost zero resistance on anti-grav systems.

The reason for that is pretty simple, right? Constant velocity takes no external force to maintain, and the only force that will be acting against the sheet of metal will be air resistance, which is negligible out here. Adding weight to the vehicle will just slow acceleration down, but I’ll still end up building up as much speed as I need.

This is my way out of here. Though I’m going to remain stationary until I’ve got a better idea of what direction to head. Absolute worst case scenario, I’ll head west towards the coast and then try to find Numbani. But that might take a few weeks of wandering, so I’m going to keep that for a last resort.

Well, I’m going to go set up the solar panels. I don’t think I need to worry much about the angle, since there’s almost perpetual clear sun out here.

**Log Entry: 2071-07-19: 16:25 UTC + 1:00**

I woke up today at about what I think was noon. The fan wasn’t working, so I decided to go investigate. Yesterday I’d set up the solar panels on a mount and placed them on top of the dune that my tent is next to, then I ran cables to the batteries that I’m storing next to the fan.

Well, it turns out one of the cables was frayed, and the heat from the sand combined with a few other factors I was honestly too tired to investigate caused a short. I decided it was best to resolve that immediately, so I covered myself up and went out to replace the cables, propping them up along metal poles to keep them away from the sand.

I drank half a gallon of water after I finally got back inside and took a moment to cool off. I have 26.5 gallons remaining. To my delight the panels started collecting energy, and the fan started to blow. It’s just that I forgot that the air that a fan blows is just the air behind the fan pushed forward a bit faster… Maybe I can see if there’s any freon left over in the ship’s broken cooling unit and try to rig something up. Either way, I’m an idiot.

The data from the sensors reports that the sand hit a peak temperature of 80 degrees Celsius. That’s definitely a temperature.

Alright, the solar panels. I’m rather proud of this. I’m quite famous for my call sign of Mercy, which is closely associated with the medical work I do. But, while that’s the case I also have a PhD in Applied Nanobiology, which isn’t in the field of biology It’s actually in the Electrical Engineering field. I dual majored during my undergrad, because I had early dreams of applying the new and upcoming nanotechnology for medical purposes. And hey! Look at me go.

All that this really means is that I studied a lot of signals, controls and circuits during my undergrad days. And I never really forgot what I learned. It’s a fun little surprise for some people when they find out that Mercy is actually pretty good with computers. Though sometimes I do wonder why it surprises people. The work I did on the nanomachines was easily 90% electrical engineering work. Back during my Overwatch days my closest intern was a Korean girl who had studied Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. She didn’t know any biology when she first started working with me.

Regardless, the panels were in bad shape when I found them. They are about a meter wide, and a bit over 1.6 meters tall. On each panel is a 6 by 10 array of cells that collect the power from the sun and generate electricity thanks to Einstein’s photoelectric effect. I’d say easily more than half of them were completely broken, and the inner wiring of two of the panels were completely ruined. So I started removing the cells and testing if they worked, which gave me enough cells to fill one whole panel along with ten extra, which I partially filled a second panel with and redid the wiring.

None of the soldering was too hard - oh, fun fact: I found out that Americans don’t pronounce the L in solder. How oddis that? But, I’d say that soldering is a skill that I learned from medical school, since they both require steady hands. And so I started running some tests.

Currently most solar panels are rated at about 85% efficiency, which comes out to a theoretical power rating of 18.8 watts per cell. This means my entire system has a total potential power generation of 1316 watts. That’s 15,792 watt-hours in a 12 hour day, or 15.8 kilowatt-hours. Quite a bit. Now, that’s assuming ideal conditions, which are composed of strength of the sunlight, good operating temperature, condition of the cells and so on. I can only guarantee one ideal condition. The sun here should produce near optimal strength throughout most the day, so optimal that I doubt I really need to worry about the angle of the panels too much.

However, the cells I’m working with aren’t in ideal conditions, and it gets rather hot around here. In practice I produced a total of 10.9 kilowatt-hours. The batteries I have are 12 volts, with a total amp-hour rating of 20,000, which means I filled 4.5% of my total battery capacity. I’ve got a lot of storage left. My current power consumption is easy to figure out: I’ve been leaving my laptop on almost constantly, with power cycles occasionally throughout the day. It’s rated for 75 watts, meaning I use a total of 1800 watt-hours. The fan adds another 400 watt-hours a day, and all the sensors total to maybe 100 watt-hours, if I’m being generous. This means, in total, I’m consuming 21.1% of the power I generate a day. I’ve got a lot of power to work with.

This is good, since I’m anticipating that I’ll be at a net negative power production when I hook up the anti-grav system. Still, there were a lot more panels on the shuttle, so I’m going to have to find those when I decide to get moving.

I’m in a good mood after this. It’s an important step towards surviving. Now it’s time to start thinking about comms.


	3. Chapter 3

**Log Entry: 2071-07-20: 01:30 UTC + 1:00**

Now that I’ve got a semi reliable source of power, it’s time to start thinking of how to get to civilization. While I do have a potential method of transportation, which I worked on a bit today, I think it’s somewhat useless until I know where I’m going. I’m worried that aimlessly wandering will simply endanger me more. I have enough food and water to sustain myself while I work on a solution.

The good news is I managed to find a potential solution. We had a few microcontrollers onboard the ship, and I found a transmitter and a receiver that I can hook up to one of the microcontrollers. I’ve still got the antenna I found during my initial exploration when I first woke up, so hopefully I’ll be able to piece something together.

Both my laptop and the microcontrollers have bluetooth connection, so I can hopefully connect to the microcontrollers via bluetooth and start setting up the software side of all this. I’m going to abstain from brainstorming about hypotheticals and ideal situations. I think it’s best that I simply start working with what I’ve got, and see how things progress. I know for a fact that we had a booklet with a list of all the frequencies and what they are used for onboard the shuttle, so I need to track that down. Other than that, just need to keep my eye out for more solar panels, and anything else that’s potentially useful.

I’m starting to get sick of these rations. I miss chocolate. Especially Swiss.

**Log Entry: 2071-07-20: 04:10 UTC + 1:00**

I found my Valkyrie suit! It was buried in the sand about half a kilometer from the primary wreckage of the shuttle. It was actually dumb luck too, I just happened to trip on it while trying to find the shuttle’s cooling unit.

I don’t think it’s in wearable condition, however there’s quite a bit I can salvage from it. The most obvious problem was that the embedded controls system was completely fried; but the thrusters on it are completely fine. In total, the suit can produce around 4000 Newtons of sustained force, which I primarily used for bursts of mobility in emergency situations.

I’m not in a position where I can get an accurate mass of everything I’ll be needing to take with me, but I’m going to make the call now that it’s going to be a just bit more than how much of me there is, and the suit was built to fly me around.

Still, I’ve got a way to generate lift and now I’ve got a way to generate thrust. So I can now build a vehicle. Step one is to figure out how to get the anti-grav engine off of the shuttle and onto the sheet of metal that will hopefully be serving as the base of the vehicle. Y’know, I guess it’s almost like a raft, just in the middle of the desert- so yeah, let’s call it my raft from now on. After that it’ll be as easy as loading everything I need to survive onto the raft, and then stripping my suit’s thrusters and mounting them on the back.

Step one is a bit of a problem, though: the engine weighs around 500 kilograms. I think - and I really need to stress that this is a theory - that I can activate the engine and move it around relatively easily...but I actually have no idea how. My knowledge about these engines begins and ends with being given a basic rundown of how the shuttles worked. So, yes, this might be a bit of a problem.

I should be getting to sleep soon, but before I do that I need to figure out what to do tomorrow. Having a method of transportation will eventually be necessary for me to get out of this situation, however it’s almost useless without knowing where I am. I also don’t want to risk damaging the engine. With that in mind, I think the best way to proceed from here is to focus all my efforts on establishing communication with someone on the outside.

Before any of that, I should sleep first. It’s been a while since I had to sit down and do some programming, so I’d like to be well rested before I start.

**Log Entry: 2071-07-20: 16:20 UTC + 1:00**

Okay! So back during my freshman year of university I took a class that was called Introduction to Engineering. Truth be told, it wasn’t a particularly rigorous course. Rather it felt like more of a way to introduce students to the idea of working in a group, and as a way to give them fun projects to keep them enthusiastic about engineering during a semester that would otherwise be filled with prerequisite classes.

The final project for the course was fairly open ended, we had to propose what it would be to the professor, and once we were given approval you’d spend your time in class working on it. The group I ended up being assigned to was rather enthusiastic about the entire thing, and one of them proposed building a shortwave radio out of an arduino.

Unfortunately I don’t have eidetic memory, but I do remember most of what we did to make that project succeed. And it turns out that I happen to have everything I need to make it. There’s going to be an, uhh, experimental phase, let’s call it, as I try to piece together the gaps in my memory, but it should be fun.

There are a few concerns, the most pressing of which is that I don’t have access to any external libraries for my microcontrollers. So, I’m going to be coding everything from scratch.

But, enough talking! Time to get to work.

**Log Entry: 2071-07-20: 17:53 UTC + 1:00**

I’ve spent the last hour and a half staring at my text editor. Where do I even start with this? I’m the most confident about assembling the hardware, but that’s all useless without the software to make it work.

I’m trying to do a project that was completed by a team of four people with full access to every resource humanity had to offer by myself. And I am truly by myself. If I get stuck I can’t look up potential solutions, or talk to associates about how to proceed. This is a shot in the dark, and I know it. I’m trying to build a radio out of salvaged electronics from a wreckage, I’m in one of the most hostile environments on this planet and I have no clue where the hell I am beyond that.

Scheisse.

Okay, Angela, what can you do for now? Start with that. I, uhh, suppose I could assemble the hardware first while thinking about how to start writing the code.

Yeah. Let’s do that.

**Log Entry: 2071-07-21: 03:35 UTC + 1:00**

Well, today was productive. But not in the way I intended - It took me a few hours to get everything connected, and I made sure to carefully note the pins everything was connected to. After I finished that, I decided that my time would be better spent trying to salvage more of what I could from the wreckage. There were three major finds: First was the booklet with lists of radio frequencies. I’ve made sure to store that somewhere safe - I’ll be using it later. Second was the shuttle’s air conditioning unit. I’d usually be a lot happier about this, but the AC unit was nonfunctional when I tried powering it on. Still, from what I can tell everything looks like it’s there, so once I establish contact with the outside I’ll ask them to find someone who knows about AC repair to help me.

The third thing I found is pretty exciting. I found Chow’s personal hard drive. Now, I’m very aware that this is a violation of his privacy, but I’m also confident that he’d be fine with me using his hard drive in order to keep myself alive. See, Chow was a communications engineer; he was going to be the one that set up the satellite once we arrived at Ajban, so I was pretty damn sure that I’d find something useful on his hard drive.

And, well, I sure did. First I found music. A lot of music. Eight hundred and sixty two gigabytes of music, to be precise. It was meticulously split up into folders that sorted them by genre, artist and then release dates. Now, I’m not sure if it’s possible for one person to listen to that much music in a lifetime, and I’m also fairly certain that all of it was pirated- but it’s music. I can finally hear something other than the sound of my own voice!

Chow also had his personal notes on the drive. And these notes went all the way back to when he was in university. So I’ve got almost ten years worth of notes from a communications engineer. It’s going to take some time to sort through all of them, but I’m feeling a lot more optimistic now. Engineering is not a solo activity, and now I’ve got someone else helping me figure out how to make this radio.

**Log Entry: 2071-07-21: 15:20 UTC + 1:00**

Well I got up bright and early, ready for a day of work, but the temperature sensor is reading 51 degrees. I hate the heat. Once I get back to Switzerland I’m going to find a walk-in refrigerator and never leave it. For now I’ll just sleep until it cools down.

**Log Entry: 2071-07-21: 18:51 UTC + 1:00**

That’s better.

I had the most wonderful dream of a long, cold shower. Can you believe that? I’m having pleasant dreams about cold showers. If there were ever a sign of one’s sanity slipping it’s definitely that.

Over breakfast I did a bit of digging through Chow’s drive, and guess what! During his sophomore year of university he did the exact same project I did. Now, he wired things up differently- which means I’ll have to undo some of the work I did yesterday, but he even had pseudocode in his notes. Thank god for his meticulousness, I can’t think of any other person who’d bother typing pseudocode out.

Oh! I also found what is possibly the greatest discovery I’ve made so far. On his drive Chow had compiled the winners of every single Eurovision. That’s right. All the way back to the 1950s. One hundred and fifteen of Europe’s greatest songs all through recent history.

So, I’ve got some music, notes and everything I need to build this radio. Nothing can stop me now.

**Log Entry: 2071-07-22: 05:15 UTC + 1:00**

I’m going to be honest here, this radio isn’t really my work. The only piece of code that wasn’t ripped from Chow’s notes was the function I wrote to have the radio automatically cycle through the frequencies I found in the booklet. The trickiest part of that was figuring out how to have the radio stop cycling when it gets a reply. I’m pretty sure my solution will work, though it is rather inelegant. Oh, I also wrote the GUI, if I can really call it that. I decided I’d do everything via my laptop’s terminal, so I just had the radio constantly printing which frequency it was broadcasting to, and it’ll print something and make a sound if I get a message.

I can transmit 1200 bits per second, which translates to 150 ASCII characters. After some deliberation, the message I decided on was, “Angela Ziegler here. Stranded in Sahara after shuttle crashed. Position unknown. Have food and water for three more weeks. Contact me ASAP.” I’ve got 11 characters left in that message, but I’m not sure what else to say.

I also made a cantenna out of some scrap metal. And, I’m going to be honest here, I can’t believe that I’ve lived through a situation where building a cantenna might actually help save my life.

The radio is set up, so all that’s left to do is to start broadcasting and to wait.

**Log Entry: 2071-07-22: 05:32 UTC + 1:00**

I forgot to log this, and it’s somewhat important. I took a look at the orange box from the shuttle, and the sensors reported that the air pressure was perfectly normal for the altitude we were flying at. I’m not a meteorologist, but I believe that if there were a storm there would have been noticeable differences in the air pressure.

On a related note, the storm on the horizon hasn’t moved. If it’s even actually a storm. While I haven’t seen many sandstorms in my life, the behavior of this storm seems rather unnatural. Fortunately, I’m a fair distance from it, so I’m safe.

Goodnight.

**Log Entry: 2071-07-22: 19:45 UTC + 1:00**

I’m going to take today off. There hasn’t been any reply to my broadcasts, but from what I can tell it’s transmitting just fine. I could try to work on a plan to get the anti-grav engine onto the sheet of metal for my raft, but I’ll wait a bit first, because I’d really like some outside help on that situation.

You know what I haven’t done in a while? Stargaze.

**Log Entry: 2071-07-23: 01:20 UTC + 1:00**

One of my fondest memories of my time at university was a night that I went out by myself to stargaze. The original plan was to for my lab partner and me to drive out and try to see if we could spot the second ISS, but she sprained her ankle an hour before we were supposed to leave.

Not to be deterred, I packed my supplies and drove to some nearby mountains. The area around the mountains were completely uninhabited, something that’s become increasingly rare as we advance as a species.

Once I stopped the car I hiked as far as I comfortably could, then set up my telescope. I’d always seen pictures of what the stars look like from isolated areas, but it was something else entirely to experience it for myself. It was almost overwhelming, just how many stars there were and how bright they were. In that moment I truly realized how tiny our planet was. Every single point of light I saw in the sky was a star just like our sun. On a cosmic scale we are insignificant specs of dust. Nothing we do can truly affect the universe. Every moment of triumph or tragedy that our species experiences is meaningless to the universe.

Then I saw the ISS. It streaked through the sky, just as big and bright as the stars around it. And it was almost absurd when I thought about it. As a species, we launched thousands of kilograms of metal into space, where it traveled 27,000 kilometers per hour around our planet. All so we could send astronauts to live in the satellite to do experiments that help us better understand the universe, and to improve our lives down on our little blue ball.

It was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.

By this point in my life I had already decided that humanity was something I fundamentally believed in, but I think that that night I realized why I believed in humanity. In spite of all our flaws, in spite of the fact that we live in a cold and uncaring universe, we’re constantly striving to improve. We know that we can always do better, and as a species we perpetually chase after that idea. Nothing matters on the grand scale of the universe, so we get to choose what matters to us. And I’m pretty happy with what we’ve chosen.

I can’t quite put my finger on why, but I feel like I did that night. I’m completely isolated with one of the best views on the planet, but also I’m remembering why I’m in this situation in the first place. I was doing my best to live up to the ideal of a better human species, and once I get out of this desert I’m going to continue working towards it.


End file.
